What's going to take the guts is not only backing up the truck, but taking A and AA players in return. Teams aren't giving up their developed top prospects. Yo have to take chances on undeveloped talent if you want to really rebuild a farm system.
BTW, Escobar whom we sent to the Twins is probably better than any infielder we have except for Konerko and Alexei.

I don't have much of a problem with taking high-upside talent, but I have zero confidence in the minor league coaches to be able to properly develop those guys. Crede might have been the last position player they were somewhat successful with.

As we've discussed before, strikeouts aren't as much how many as when. We're about middle of the pack in K's in the majors with runners on. Interesting we're last in walks with runners on, and we also have the lowest ground ball to fly ball ratio by any team in the majors by a ton when runners are on (the average is 0.92, the Sox are at 0.52; no other team is lower than 0.69), which means when we get guys on, almost everyone's swinging for the fences.

See and that's just not correct. 90+% outs are all the same, whether they come via strikeout, groundout, flyout, whatever.

The Sox OBP is .273. Dead last in the AL. 40 points off the league average. There's no better predictor of offensive success than On Base Percentage.

Heck, we're playing with nothing but utility infielders right now, except for Konerko and Alexei. Gillespie may be more than that - we'll see.

And after one injury, it's utility outfielders time too.

Quote:

Originally Posted by SoxSpeed22

I don't have much of a problem with taking high-upside talent, but I have zero confidence in the minor league coaches to be able to properly develop those guys. Crede might have been the last position player they were somewhat successful with.

Peavy is the one player we have who could really bring some young talent. Rios, could bring in some too, especially if he's hot at the deadline. But the trades have to be executed correctly, for a change.

Heck, we're playing with nothing but utility infielders right now, except for Konerko and Alexei. Gillespie may be more than that - we'll see.

And after one injury, it's utility outfielders time too.

All right, so now we're up to 3/4 of the infield and I'm going to assume Keppinger, over 162 games and not 16, will play better than Escobar. So we've established he's no more than a utility infielder on this roster, as well. Super duper.

This is as ridiculous as the people who think the Sox should be bringing back Brent Lillibridge. What is it about people getting attached to bad players?

See and that's just not correct. 90+% outs are all the same, whether they come via strikeout, groundout, flyout, whatever.

It's that 10% that makes the difference. Most outs are the same, especially all outs when there's no one on. You can have productive outs when runners are on, but it's damn near impossible to have a productive strikeout. That's why strikeouts when, for instance, you have a runner on 2nd and no out, are more damaging than the same strikeout with 2 outs and no one on.

Dunn's 2-for-19 with 8 K's when we have RISP. Those 8 K's are much more damaging than the other 15, because they either didn't move guys over or didn't bring them in.

That's a stunning statistic really.
But I guess it's a matter of a bad OBP team to begin with having a bad year.

This is largely a function of the two historically high-OBP players on the roster (Dunn and Keppinger) and one expected to walk a lot (Flowers) failing to walk.

__________________The universe is the practical joke of the General at the expense of the Particular, quoth Frater Perdurabo, and laughed. The disciples nearest him wept, seeing the Universal Sorrow. Others laughed, seeing the Universal Joke. Others wept. Others laughed. Others wept because they couldn't see the Joke, and others laughed lest they should be thought not to see the Joke. But though FRATER laughed openly, he wept secretly; and really he neither laughed nor wept. Nor did he mean what he said.

All right, so now we're up to 3/4 of the infield and I'm going to assume Keppinger, over 162 games and not 16, will play better than Escobar. So we've established he's no more than a utility infielder on this roster, as well. Super duper.

This is as ridiculous as the people who think the Sox should be bringing back Brent Lillibridge. What is it about people getting attached to bad players?

You are right, it is much easier to be cynical about every single player as that way you have a better chance of being right. No one was saying Escobar or Gillespie is Jeter. They are saying they might develop into something serviceable.

I'm sure Uribe and Crede were "bad" players too...until they played a huge part in us winning the WS in 05.

This is largely a function of the two historically high-OBP players on the roster (Dunn and Keppinger) and one expected to walk a lot (Flowers) failing to walk.

Keppinger is not a historically high OBP ballplayer. It's okay, but nothing special. He had a career year last year.
Dunn hasn't had a good obp since before he joined the Sox.
I don't think we stacked up that well to start with, and now we're obviously off the charts bad.

Quote:

Originally Posted by doublem23

All right, so now we're up to 3/4 of the infield and I'm going to assume Keppinger, over 162 games and not 16, will play better than Escobar. So we've established he's no more than a utility infielder on this roster, as well. Super duper.

This is as ridiculous as the people who think the Sox should be bringing back Brent Lillibridge. What is it about people getting attached to bad players?

I started off by saying he EXCEPT for Konerko and Alexei. It's not that ridiculous

Keppinger is not a historically high OBP ballplayer. It's okay, but nothing special. He had a career year last year.
Dunn hasn't had a good obp since before he joined the Sox.
I don't think we stacked up that well to start with, and now we're obviously off the charts bad.

I started off by saying he EXCEPT for Konerko and Alexei. So who are we talking about - Keppinger (a mediocre ballplayer most years), Gillespie (who knows), and a bunch of utility players. Hardly ridiculous

I should have used more precise language. Neither Keppinger nor Dunn are career MLB leaders in OBP. But their career histories showed they put up decent OBPs - until they came here.